This recipe was inspired by the Elote (grilled corn) served at Momocho, a great modern Mexican restaurant. It is my favorite restaurant in Cleveland. I love to try out the different types of tacos that chef/owner Eric Williams comes up with.
*My current favorites are the ground lamb picadillo, and the shredded wild boar. Their traditional recipes, like the beef barbacoa and pork carnitas are also great, but I can't help but try something like wild boar when I see it on a menu. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that they have some of the best margaritas and tequilas in town. Check out the video at the end of the post to see chef Williams do this recipe up right.
I'm going to do full-on Elote, Mexican street vendor style corn, on this blog. Really. I am. Someday. Sigh. OK, I'll be honest with myself. It might be a while. When I'm grilling dinner, I'm always in a hurry. The corn is a side dish, and the last thing on the grill. That extra step of brushing it with crema and sprinkling it with cojita cheese seems like a bridge too far when I'm rushing to get dinner on the table. Someday...
Recipe: Grilled Corn with Chipotle Lime Butter
Inspired by: Elote at Momocho
Cook time: 12 minutes
Equipment:
- Grill (I used a Weber Summit 650. The extra space is great when grilling corn as a side dish.Here it is.
)
- Basting Brush (I like the Oxo Large Silicone Brush
)
- 6 Fresh ears of corn, husked
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (optional
)
- 1 clove of garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press (optional)
- Juice of 1 lime
Directions:
1. Prepare the corn: Husk the corn. Put the butter, salt, chipotle powder, paprika, garlic, and lime juice in a grill-safe pot.
2. Prepare the grill Set your grill up for cooking on medium heat. For my Weber Summit, this means preheating with all the burners on high for 10-15 minutes, then turning the burners down to medium.
3. Grill the corn: Put the ears of corn and the chipotle butter container on the grill over the direct medium heat. On a gas grill, keep the lid closed as much as possible. Cook the corn for three minutes, until the corn starts to brown. Give it a quarter turn (rotate the cooked section of the corn to the side), then cook for another three minutes. Then another quarter turn, and another three minutes of cooking. Brush the corn with the chipotle butter, give it another quarter turn, and cook for three more minutes. (Watch out flareups if the butter drips into the fire).
*Think of the corn as having four sides - you want to rotate each side to face the heat for two minutes. Think 3-3-3-brush with butter-3. If one part of your grill is browning the corn more than another, swap the ears around during one of the turns.
**Keep an eye on the chipotle butter. The butter should be melted with the spices sizzling about the time the corn is ready to be brushed. If the butter starts to brown, move it to a cooler part of the grill.
4. Serve: Remove the corn from the grill, and brush with any remaining butter. Serve
Variations:
*Chipotle powder has a lot of kick. This is spicy corn. To lower the heat without losing the hot pepper flavor, substitute ancho or guajillo powder.
*To complete the mexican street corn experience, after grilling the corn, brush it with mexican crema (or mayonnaise), then sprinkle with crumbled cojita cheese (or crumbled feta cheese)
Notes:
*Don't have a grill-safe pot to melt the butter? Microwave it until the butter is melted and the garlic is just sizzling.
*Leftover grilled corn makes a great side dish - check out my grilled corn salsa in the Related Posts section below.
What do you think? Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.
Related Posts:
Grilled Corn (the simple version)
Grilled Corn and Pineapple Salsa
Inspired by:
Want to see the master at work? Here is chef Eric Williams of Momochos to show you how it's done:
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10 comments:
We love Elote at our house, and find kt's an especislly good use for corn we foegot sbout for a couple of days. To simplify it for the dinnertime rush, we put all the condiments in bowls and everyone dresses up their own at the table. So there's crema (or mayo- just as good), cotija (or Parmesan or Romano), ground chilis of some sort- I like ancho best, and lime wedges. And mercifully no more work than setting out burger condiments.
Love it, Mike. We just grilled some Iowa sweet corn last week and like you, I wanted to keep it very simple, so I just went with olive oil, salt and pepper. But I'm going to try this recipe next time for variety and a bit of kick. It's also an excuse to add Chipotle powder to the pantry.
Man, this sounds good enough to move from side dish to center stage. I am definitely trying this next time.
Hello, I've recently begun reading your blog because I've also begun blogging on the subject of cooking.
As a kid, I grew up in Mexico and became very interested in reading this post because I ate Elote quite a bit in Mexico. I like that you keep it simple but true to Mexican tradition (crema, cheese, lime, and paprika) as opposed to traditional American corn. As far as your future project of Mexican street vendor style Elote, it would be cool if you could find large corn not on the cob. Its a special kernel much bigger than our regular corn. Anyways, love it and nice work.
@Beth:
Make your own Elote - brilliant! I'll have to try that...
@jamminalley, @Jim Tolar:
Thank you!
@Kyle:
I thought Elote style was grilled on the cob - how do you cook the larger kernel corn, if it's not on the cob? Grilled? Boiled? Other?
Yeah, ur right. technically, elote means corn on the cob, but sometimes they would serve it in a plastic cup, and again technically it was called esquites, but we generally called both elote, whether on or off the cob.
As promised, I tried on Saturday for just my wife and me and it was delicious. I used chipotle in adobo instead of chipotle powder. We liked it so much I trotted it out for the whole extended family on Sunday and it was an overwhelming success. This is now my favorite way to cook sweetcorn.
@Jim Tolar:
Great! I am glad you improvised with the chipotle en adobo, I do it that way myself sometimes.
OMG, this looks amazing!!!!!
Thank you!
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